No, for crying out loud, I don't know, nor care, how to frigging do X in application Y!!! ARGH!!!

Seriously, for crying out loud, why the fuck is it that just because I write software I'm expected to know the most intimate details of every application on this frigging planet? I'm so sick and tired of the really dazed and confused look I get from people when their hopes and dreams are crushed when I don't even know their application even exists!

Same goes for MS Office, WTF does me writing code have to do with how to do X in spreadsheet cell Y? I don't frigging know! Check the damn documentation, that's why it's there! And most of the time it's shit that's so braindead obvious if the person would bother to simply look at the frigging menus...

Seriously, for crying out loud, why the fuck is it that just because I write software I'm expected to know the most intimate details of every application on this frigging planet? I'm so sick and tired of the really dazed and confused look I get from people when their hopes and dreams are crushed when I don't even know their application even exists!

Same goes for MS Office, WTF does me writing code have to do with how to do X in spreadsheet cell Y? I don't frigging know! Check the damn documentation, that's why it's there! And most of the time it's shit that's so braindead obvious if the person would bother to simply look at the frigging menus...

most people that program computers are pretty smart about figuring out how to do things. If I had a problem with some random (non-excel) program and I had two options: 1. ask a programmer, 2. ask a salesman, I would do the former most of the time. That being said, we are suppose to be computer scientists, not just code monkeys. It's nice to know a lot about various programs. It makes us understand computers and computer interfaces better.

The most frequent one I experience is that everyone seems to think I'm a master at resolving printer problems because I have a degree in Comp Sci. Why don't they go bother the EEs? It's their fault, not mine.

The most frequent one I experience is that everyone seems to think I'm a master at resolving printer problems because I have a degree in Comp Sci. Why don't they go bother the EEs? It's their fault, not mine.

The most frequent one I experience is that everyone seems to think I'm a master at resolving printer problems because I have a degree in Comp Sci. Why don't they go bother the EEs? It's their fault, not mine.

Seriously, for crying out loud, why the fuck is it that just because I write software I'm expected to know the most intimate details of every application on this frigging planet?

You're doing it wrong. Just tell people that you program mainframe computers. Then, if they insist that you still will know how to help, act confused and keep doing the same incorrect thing repeatedly ("huh? it doesn't work like this on a mainframe!").

The most frequent one I experience is that everyone seems to think I'm a master at resolving printer problems because I have a degree in Comp Sci. Why don't they go bother the EEs? It's their fault, not mine.

The most frequent one I experience is that everyone seems to think I'm a master at resolving printer problems because I have a degree in Comp Sci. Why don't they go bother the EEs? It's their fault, not mine.

Tell me about it, those questions people ask which you could type into google verbatim and get the answer in the first hit. I think it's that people don't actually get what programming is so you are perceived as being a "computer guy" and therefore know everything. One of my favourite questions is always "I can't open this file X, what do i do?" when typing the extension into google would give you the answer in half the time(and mean i don't have to do it). I think we find it weird because(at least for me) asking an actual person is a last resort, after i've exhausted all other options, whereas for the average user they want to speak to an actual person about it for some reason. I also find there is no point explaining to them that you don't know the answer any more than they do and showing them how to find out, their eyes just glaze over and next time they just come and ask you again. Also WTF is with asking questions about office? Why would I, as a programmer, know anything about word? I don't even have it installed(the word reader works well enough), although i do have the ability to read menus and type my question into a little box and click a button so i guess that makes me an expert.

I once had a boss while i was a uni and working in a restaurant that
asked me about a problem in word, when i couldn't fix it he was really
annoyed and said "Well what do they teach you then if you can't even
solve a simple problem like this?"

Just remebered another WTF i experienced a few years ago. A client asked me a really obvious question(not related to the project just a general IT question), I opened up google and showed her how she could type in the question and pretty much click the first hit. Her eyes went wide and she exclaimed "I didn't know you could use google for work stuff too!". I'm not quite sure what she thought google was for or how it differentiates between "work stuff" and other content but she had honestly never realised you could use it for searching anything.

Tell me about it, those questions people ask which you could type into google verbatim and get the answer in the first hit. I think it's that people don't actually get what programming is so you are perceived as being a "computer guy" and therefore know everything. One of my favourite questions is always "I can't open this file X, what do i do?" when typing the extension into google would give you the answer in half the time(and mean i don't have to do it). I think we find it weird because(at least for me) asking an actual person is a last resort, after i've exhausted all other options, whereas for the average user they want to speak to an actual person about it for some reason. I also find there is no point explaining to them that you don't know the answer any more than they do and showing them how to find out, their eyes just glaze over and next time they just come and ask you again. Also WTF is with asking questions about office? Why would I, as a programmer, know anything about word? I don't even have it installed(the word reader works well enough), although i do have the ability to read menus and type my question into a little box and click a button so i guess that makes me an expert.

Ugh, "How do I open...?" yea I get that all the time. Matter of fact, here's a fun one! A few months ago I made some major network changes, new router, network switches, etc. So the other day I hear this complaint from my boss that ever since then, he can no longer open files! Puzzled I actually asked him to show me what the problem was. Here's what he did:

1. He opens Microsoft Word.

2. He navigates to a PDF file (on his machine, not on a network share!)

3. He attempts to open the PDF with Word

4. It miserably fails (as expected, by me anyway, he was confused)

I tried to explain that all he needs to do is open explorer (this is where I lost him already), navigate to the file with explorer instead, and double click it to have adobe reader open it. His eyes just glazed over, apparently he can only navigate to a file if he uses Word's file->open.

Another favorite question of his, usually in reference to some word document, "Can I save this as a PDF?"....erm....as far as I'm concerned, SURE, go for it!!! sigh

Yeah i had a co-worker experience this a few months ago. We needed to do a simple one off report of something like "users that hadn't logged in for a year" or something like that. You know, a simple sql query, dump into spreadsheet, send. He got an email back about twenty minutes later saying the columns were too narrow and she couldn't read the whole of the email address, she helpfully attached the file again so he could send it back to her with the resized columns. His response, a link to a youtube video showing how to resize columns.

The amazing thing is the user that did this is an office admin who does, timesheets pays and general office stuff and should by all rights know vastly more about excel than any programmers because she probably spends about 4 hours a day using excel, yet somehow she missed the basics and needed an "expert" to do it for her.

If only i'd paid more attention in that semester i took on resizing columns in excel.

apparently he can only navigate to a file if he uses Word's file->open.

He should right-click on the file and choose "Open" from the context menu. This will invoke the Explorer shell handler for the specific file type and open it in Acrobat. It will even helpfully remind him what application actually opens it.

Now your boss can be clueless and still get his job done, simply by knowing one little trick that makes him feel smart. He feels smart, the job gets done, and most importantly he leaves you alone.

1. People ask me to do very simple things in programs that I don't use and hence don't know how to do.

2. I know how to find the answer, so I do that and then give them the answer.

3. Complain.

This thread is really very illuminating. You people are the same people that when a user can't use your program you simply call them stupid and say, "well it's easy for me." I would hate to have to use the shit you people make.

If I'm dicking around or something, I'm not going to complain. It's when endless layers of middle management and admin assistants who provide no business value interrupt my I'M-BUILDING-YOUR-COMPANY'S-PRODUCT-AND-CHARGING-YOU-THOUSANDS-OF-DOLLARS-A-DAY work that I'm going to complain. Your bloody company has a helpdesk - just because I have a consultant badge on my shirt doesn't mean I'm THAT kind of outsourcing.

You people are the same people that when a user can't use your program you simply call them stupid and say, "well it's easy for me." I would hate to have to use the shit you people make.

Not really, the software i write isn't generally documented on google (as they are usually internal corporate apps), questions about that i am fine with. It's questions which require zero in depth knowledge of computing to solve that are annoying as i am no more qualified to find the answer than they are. I'm not sure that there is any link at all between people asking dumb questions about word annoying me and the quality of software i write, the suggestion that there is borders on ludicrous. If you do not find similar situations annoying you are very lucky.

But seeing as you seem fine with stupid questions please answer the following for me:

You people are the same people that when a user can't use your program you simply call them stupid and say, "well it's easy for me." I would hate to have to use the shit you people make.

You know, I used to feel the way you do... I would always try to be helpful, and answer the questions. But the thing I learned from working in support roles is that [i]people are lazy[/i]. People asking questions like this is (in my experience) not really about them not knowing [i]how[/i] to look it up - it's about them not being bothered to look it up when they know you're but an easy phonecall away.

The problem is, if you answer their questions, and are generally a helpful person, word gets around and before you know where you are you do more "tech support" work than development. It's like helping people with PCs at home that are "very slow" or "don't work properly anymore".

I agree with the majority here. Companies have internal support for this sort of thing, and [i]that[/i] should be used when you [i]can't[/i] figure out something yourself, not when you want your hand held through underlining some text. With regards to MS Office in particular, not only do Microsoft put a lot of resources into their documentation (nowadays!), there are more websites dedicated to MS Office help than I can count.

This thread is really very illuminating. You people are the same people that when a user can't use your program you simply call them stupid and say, "well it's easy for me." I would hate to have to use the shit you people make.

People are lazy. They optimise. I've adopted a policy of saying "I don't know" and continuing what I was already doing, because once they perceive "it is easy to ask Caliban" that will become their strategy and they will teach it to others.

So I interpret this thread differently.

1. People I honestly like ask me questions, and I honestly want to help.

2. It is more efficient to get the answer than to try and teach them how, so I do that. They like the result, so they ask me more questions.

3. Gradually, by the death of a thousand cuts, my development work stops getting done because now I am the freakin' help desk AGAIN. Now I resent these people and their stupid questions and the way they have made my job suck, in addition to taking up all my time I should be using for development, so my management is looking at me with disapproval because my productivity is decreasing.

You need to learn how to say "I don't know". If you do know, and it's easy to communicate, tell people what you know. If you don't, or it's hard to explain, just say you don't know. It's okay not to know.

Same here, it's work I'm primarily referring to. Outside of work this is much easier, I simply answer "I don't use windows." which for the most part is true. It still gets me confused looks from people but mostly shuts them up.

It's just at work where, was the other person has stated, this is more difficult to do. Particularly when the person who signs your paycheck comes asking with another yet ridiculous question.

And at the end of the day, it isn't that I mind helping. It's that I've already answered the question TEN TIMES! It zoomed right over his head the previous 10 times, it'll do so again the 11th time! And 12th, and 13th and 14th...

Outside of work I've definitely become sick and tired of being people's personal tech support because quite honestly, my time is limited and I have better things to do. Oh and more importantly, when I need help with something (that I know they could help me with), everyone is always too busy. So why the hell should I help someone when they can't help me. No more of that....

And of course, when someone comes asking how the hell they they do something in like oh I don't know...incredimail or some piece of garbage like that, the only thing I really want to do is put them out of their misery for spamming the world with e-mails sent by that piece of garbage in the first place.

The same reason one might expect that a man who installs central heating boilers for a living would also have some idea how to put a new washer in a tap, I suppose. What was he asking you to do, anyway? Because in all fairness to the guy, I'd expect a CS undergraduate -any undergraduate, in fact- to have taken CS classes in highschool and remember at least some of it.

...for the average user they want to speak to an actual person about it for some reason.

I'd rather ask someone I know to be computer literate and/or considerably smarter than me than play Search Engine Roulette; not knowing what the hell you're talking about is no barrier to posting your words of 'wisdom' on a forum, or getting number one search result for it.

...I don't even have it installed (the Word reader works well enough)...

That actually made me say 'WTF?', or rather 'HTF?' in this instance. Surely you have to write the occasional report or memo or something?

Have you heard of OpenOffice?

And apropos of nothing (I'm assuming they used OO,) an purported linux user (contractor, not employee, doing network BOFH stuff) who's departing from my place of employment, after a couple of years, was asked to submit documentation for various systems/procedures. Among the complaints aimed at one piece of said documentation was, "they've used two different colours, and also different fonts." (Another complaint was using 1st person/3rd person within. This was a technical document intended for 3rd parties.)

I've yet to see it, but this comment was in relation to the 'contents' index, not the body of the document. (Dark blue and black apparently.) I'm not entirely sure but I'm sure OO has got ToC functionality.

Having seen one other piece of documentation from this person, for a system I'm familiar with, I dread to think what the rest of the document was like.

Yup, at work. Friends and family i don't mind if i know they would have no clue how to get the answer themselves.

I now only actually help friends. Family can be damned - if they want an answer to a "how" they aren't getting one - if they want me to un-bork their computer I AM going to install SteadyState and advise them in the future to always save to a floppy disk (or a flash drive if they're somewhat intelligent people). Friends I'll still do full service for, but it'll cost them some beers - they're cool with this (most of my friends are in IT fields or engineering fields that are closely related for them to feel the pain anyway, and the ones that aren't have seen those of us that are struggle against the tide of stupid).

Work, on the other hand. People at work are annoying. I used to work at my university's helpdesk a few years ago. Occasionally I wander in to hang with some people who moved on to fulltime positions over there. I STILL get people asking me for help because they remember I used to be helpful... Four years ago. If you help someone once and ask nothing in return, as you kind of have to do at work, they will continue to ask for more indefinitely. Therefore, if your job title does not say "Support" - DO NOT PROVIDE SUPPORT. EVER.

Because in all fairness to the guy, I'd expect a CS undergraduate -any undergraduate, in fact- to have taken CS classes in highschool and remember at least some of it.

Nope, never did any computing at high school.

I guess my main contention is this, people who work in an office environment(non developers) pretty much only use word, excel and outlook. As a developer i read docs and spreadsheets but rarely need to create them. So by all rights i should be asking them questions about word as they are presumably much more experienced using it than me.

The most frequent one I experience is that everyone seems to think I'm a master at resolving printer problems because I have a degree in Comp Sci. Why don't they go bother the EEs? It's their fault, not mine.

The question is, are you usually able to fix the printer problem?

A while back a girl in a dorm lab asked me to fix a printer that was malfunctioning. It was one of those giant xerox printer/copier things with an LCD display on it. So I looked at the screen and followed the instructions given on it for fixing the problem (a piece of paper was jammed inside it's guts somewhere). She was very thankful.

What a bunch of unhelpful moaning Minnies the most of you are! I take pleasure in helping and teaching people, even if they are asking dumb questions about something that isn't my speciality. It's called teamwork, it makes people happy and less ignorant, and it makes your company work better. If it's something you don't know, well then you might learn something; if it's something that's bleeding obvious to you, then you are the right person to ask. In either case, if you sort someone out, then they owe you a beer or a favour, which may come in useful next time you need to ask a dumb (or even sensible) question about their area of expertise. How many of you put "strong teamwork skills" on your CV? You might want to reconsider.

I did consider using 'threads passim-ad-nausium' instead, but thought I'd get the same reaction (from using that, that) I clearly got from a regular poster here from the (I thought) more clearer Anglo-Saxon version.

Apparently TRWTF is someone who didn't catch on that else-where is a common expression in English, and a where is a place, the same as you might recieve an answer that a post was in a particular thread if the question were: "Where's that post?"

Therefore, else-thread is a perfectly obvious shortening of a longer phrase. I got it and didn't have to wonder. The ma[ke|y] bit was a bit of a thinker, I probably wasted two nanoseconds on it...